The Little Merman, Ariel
by blueberries95
Summary: Follows the story of the little mermaid but gender swapped. Male! Ariel Female! Eric


Disclaimer: The Little Mermaid belong to Disney not me.

Our story begins on the vast Atlantic Ocean. It's a foggy morning, the seagulls are flying soaring the sky freely and the porpoises are swimming happily. From the fog a ship appears, crashing through the waves, sailing back to its homeland. The sailors aboard the ship sing happily as they pull up a net filled with fish. Aboard that ship is Princess Erica. Gripping on the ropes she raises the sails, her dog max beside her pants in excitement.

"Isn't this great? The salty sea air, the wind blowing in your face . . . a perfect day to be at sea!" says the princess grinning widely at the blue ocean before her. Her manservant and confidant, Grimsby, is already green from the constant rocking of the ship,

"Oh yes . . . delightful . . . ." he says feeling sick; he leans over the railing and continues throwing up. Why did he think it was a good idea to leave his room?

"A fine strong wind and a following sea. Queen Triteia must be in a friendly-type mood." Says a sailor to the princess as he pulls in the rope

"Queen Triteia?" asks Erica curiously running to help him secure the ropes

"Why, ruler of the merpeople, Milady. Thought every good sailor knew about her." another sailor says getting the fish out of the net and into a barrel

 _Merpeople_ , thought the princess, _how interesting._ Max runs up to her and Erica bends down to scratch him.

"Merpeople! Erica, pay no attention to this nautical nonsense." Scoffs Grimsby, trying to pull himself together as he comes down the front deck.

"But it ain't nonsense, it's the truth! I'm tellin' you, down in the depths o' the ocean they live." insists another sailor gesturing widely with a fish at Grimsby face. The fish slips from his hand and flops away landing back into the ocean.

The sailors continue singing and the fish sighs thankfully for escaping before swimming away deeper into the ocean; between sea kelp and above sea anemone making them sink in fear. A school of fish swims across the ocean floor, jellyfish floats to the surface and a family of whales goes hunting for planktons. Merfolk suddenly appear from around the corals and behind the reefs; swimming with their families, their friends, or by themselves. They whirl to a cave entrance that leads them to a great undersea palace. The merfolk converge to the concert hall inside and slowly start filling up the seats.

A small seashore holding a trumpet clears his throat and bellows, "Ahem . . . Her royal highness, Queen Triteia!"

The hall explodes in wild cheers as the Queen enters dramatically riding a giant shell pulled by two dolphins. Triteia swims off her chariot and floats to her seat

When the crowd settles down the seahorse continues, "And presenting the distinguished court composer, Horatio Thelonious Ignatius Crustaceous Sebastian!"

The small red crab, Sebastian, enters to a mild applause. Two gold fish pull his seashell chariot towards the Queen,

"I'm really looking forward to this performance, Sebastian." Says the Queen nonchalantly

"Oh, Your Majesty, dis will be the finest concert I have ever conducted. Your sons - dey will be spectacular!"

"Yes and especially my little Ariel." She chuckles

"Yes, yes, he has the most beautiful voice. . . ." he says before mumbling to himself, "If only he'd show up for rehearsals once in a while. . . ."

Sebastian then proceeds to the podium, where he lets go of the gold fish. He jumps off his seashell and pulls out a huge musical sheet placing it in front of him before he begins to direct the orchestra. He looks over the podium then taps his stick three times, at his signal the fish below him start playing enthusiastically. The small clams that are laid at the stage start clearing the bubble curtains, and three giant clams rise above. They open up revealing Queen Triteia's six sons – two in each shell – who start singing cheerfully making Sebastian beaming and their mother proud.

"Ah, we are the sons of Triteia.  
Great mother who loves us and named us well:  
Aqua, Andre, Ariss, Atinn, Adel, Allan.  
And then there is the youngest in his musical debut,  
Our seventh little brother, we're presenting him to you,  
To sing a song Sebastian wrote, his voice is like a bell,  
he's our brother, Ar-i . . .!"

The six brother's voices falter as the special clam that rose higher than the others, opens up to reveal that Ariel is missing. The crowd gasps, Sebastian is shocked, and the Queen fumes in anger at the ruined performance.

"ARIEL!" She screams griping her trident tightly.

…..

Far, far in the Atlantic Ocean at hundred feet deep or so an old sunken ship lies forgotten at the ocean floor. It's only residents are the fish and seaweed. A red head merman, 16 of age, looks over an old broken mast curiously at the ship. His heart bubbles in excitement at this new adventure he has embarked on. The fallen ship before him could contain mountains of human treasure that have a very special place back in his secret tavern.

"Ariel, wait for me . . ." a tropical fish named Flounder whispers loudly breaking the moment

"Flounder, hurry up!" calls Ariel in annoyance, he gestures with his hand at the fish to hasten her pace before going back to admire the ship

"You know I can't swim that fast." Huffs Flounder when she finally catches up to Ariel.

"There it is. Isn't it fantastic?" Ariel gasps pointing at the vessel, and as if by magic the light shines upon beckoning Ariel to it.

"Yeah . . . sure . . . it - it's great. Now let's get outta here." Flounder stutters swimming away

"You're not getting cold fins now, are you?" he mocks pulling the tropical fish by her tail

"Who, me? No way." she scoffs as Ariel flicks his green tail hard as he closes the distance between himself and the ship, pulling Flounder with him.

"It's just, it, err . . . it looks - damp in there. Yeah. And I think I may be coming down with something. Yeah, I got this cough" Flounder coughs unconvincingly, Ariel who was looking through the porthole looks up smirking at her

"All right. I'm going inside. You can just stay here and - watch for sharks." Ariel says before he swims inside via the open porthole taking his salmon pink satchel with him

"O.K. Yeah - you go. I'll stay and - what? Sharks! Ariel!" Flounder gasps when she realized what Ariel had said, and then she follows Ariel trying to fit through the porthole, "Ariel . . . I can't . . . I mean- Ariel help!" she cries when she gets stuck, Ariel stops when he hears her cry of distress and swims back around,

"Oh, Flounder." he chuckles before trying to Flounder through

"Ariel, do you really think there might be sharks around here?" she says silently unaware of the giant shark looming around in the distance.

"Flounder, don't be such a guppy." Ariel snorts

"I'm not a guppy." She scowls as she finally pulled free, and then they both swim below deck

"This is great - I mean I really love this." She says looking around nervously, "Excitement, adventure, danger lurking around every corn- YAAAAHHHHHHHH! Ariel!" Flounder yells when she sees a skull of an old pirate making her crash into a pillar causing a cave in. The rubble fall down around her and Flounder swims frantically away towards Ariel knocking him over.

"Oh, are you okay?" He says at the shivering fish

"Yeah sure, no problem, I'm okay . . ." she mumbles but Ariel's attention is already stolen by a human object

"Shhh . . ." he says swimming up along with Flounder, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Have you ever seen anything so wonderful in your entire life?" he exclaims when he sees the shiny thing twinkling by the sunshine that broke through the ocean. It somehow seems to resemble his mother's trident only it's smaller in size.

"Wow, cool! But, err, what is it?" Says Flounder as they both admire the tiny trident looking at it from whichever way.

"I don't know. But I bet Scuttle will." Ariel shrugs his shoulder casually and then puts the shiny thingy into his satchel, ignorant to the fact that the shark had just swum behind them outside growling.

"What was that? Did you hear something?" Flounder jumps at the noise; she looks around in fright searching for the danger. Ariel on the other hand swims towards another object he noticed ignoring Flounder

"Hmm, I wonder what this one is." He wonders out loud as he marvels at the weird shaped human entity

"Ariel . . ." Flounder calls silently, the Shark looming behind her

"Flounder, will you relax. Nothing is going to happen." Ariel huffs just as Flounder slowly looks behind her to see the shark

"AAHHHH! Run! Run!Shark! Shark! We're gonna die!" Flounder scream petrified swimming around the ship the shark chasing close behind her. She bumps into Ariel forcing him back against the wall, as the shark approaches them its jaw snapping. Just as it's about to eat them Ariel pushes a close by dresser with his tail into the shark's mouth. It snaps hard smash the dresser into pieces.

Holding his terrified fish Ariel decides to use this moment to swim away to the other side fast, when the shark snaps its jaws at them again Ariel pushes a barrel into its mouth before hurrying out of the room looking for the exit. As he swims through the corridor towards the porthole the shark suddenly pops up from underneath them making them turn back around. Flounder screams in fear while the shark chasing them mauls at the wooden floor behind them.

Just as Ariel thinks they're getting away his pink satchel suddenly gets caught by a piece of wood that's poking out of its place. He looks back and, making a split second decision, a swims for it and snatches the bag just as the shark is about to eat it. Leaving Flounder behind he swims upward and catches up with his tropical fish at the upper hallway.

"Oh No!" Flounder gasps in shock when she sees the porthole clear ahead of her; she just knows she's going to get stuck again!

And she does. Fearing the shark could be right behind her she tries to pull free as hard as she can, luckily for her Ariel gives her a mighty shove that's frees her out. And following suit Ariel pulls his self out of the porthole and swims away, the shark still at their tracks. They swim around and around another ship's depleted mast, but all that spinning causes Flounder to get dizzy. She swims in another direction making her an easy target for the shark. Ariel notices that immediately and swims after her. Flounder stops by an anchor when Ariel grabs her away seconds before the shark attacks. The sharks swim at them with full force only to have his head stuck in the anchors shackle.

Smiling Ariel swims down where his satchel fell to take it.

"You big meanie!" Flounder says sticking her tongue out, the shark snaps at her and she swims away worried.

"Flounder, you really are a guppy." Ariel chuckles as he swims up to the surface

"I am not." She pouts swimming up with her.

Up on the surface, on the tip of an undersea mountain, a seagull sits on his makeshift nest that rests on a small crow's-nest. Holding a spyglass the opposite way looking around through it and humming happily when he hears Ariel call for him,

"Scuttle!"

" Whoa! Merman off the port bow! Ariel, how you doin' kid?" Shouts scuttle then he lowers his spyglass to reveal Ariel at wing's length, _"_ Whoa, what a swim!" he says

"Scuttle - look what we found." Ariel says excitedly showing scuttle his satchel

"Yeah - we were in this sunken ship - it was really creepy." Flounder comments remembering the shark chase

"Human stuff, huh? Hey, lemme see." he says as he throws an anchor that's attached to his leg. The anchor falls down pulling Scuttle with it. He gets up shaking his head then runs to the satchel and digs inside it, "Look at this. Wow - this is special - this is very, very unusual." He says when he picks out the tiny trident

"What? What is it?" Ariel says eagerly

"It's a dinglehopper!" Scuttle tells him "Humans use these little babies . . . to straighten their hair out." For a demonstration, Scuttle puts the dinglehopper through his feather on his head and twists it around before pulling out, "See - just a little twirl here an' a yank there and - voiolay! You got an aesthetically pleasing configuration of hair that humans go nuts over!"

"A dinglehopper!" Ariel says softly looking at Scuttles new hairstyle

"What about that one?" asks Flounder pointing at the pipe thingy

 _"_ Ah - this I haven't seen in years." Scuttle says looking at it, "This is wonderful! A banded, bulbous - snarfblat."

"Oohhh." Ariel and Flounder say in unison

"Now, the snarfblat dates back to prehistorical times, when humans used to sit around, and stare at each other all day." Scuttle explains staring at Ariel, "Got very boring. So, they invented the snarfblat to make fine music. Allow me." Scuttle holds the snarfblat to his beak and blows hard on it; seaweed pops out on the other end

 _"_ Music?" Ariel blurts out finally remembering what he was supposed to be doing hours ago, "Oh, the concert! Oh my gosh, my mother's gonna kill me!" He complains putting the human stuff back into his satchel

"The concert was today?" asks Flounder, she was so positive it was tomorrow

"Uh, I'm sorry, I've gotta go. Thank you Scuttle." Ariel says waving goodbye to the seagull before diving into the blue ocean heading to his home kingdom, flounder beside him

"Anytime dude, anytime." Scuttle says waving back


End file.
